Could "Virtual Reality" be used to make people believe they are fighting in a game when they are actually killing people they wouldn't otherwise want to kill? Maybe even for tricking military employees into murdering friends and family?
I believe it could.
I'm not saying it's that hard to talk people into becoming murder machines now, just that I think this could make things worse-- getting those who wouldn't otherwise be tools of the murderous State to kill wantonly.
That's not an excuse to ban VR, but another good reason to keep it out of government hands. Just like government should never have been allowed to have drones. Or nukes. Or guns. Or pencils. Or oxygen.
This was the plot of Ender's Game, except the enemy was aliens, not humans -- although the later books in the series revealed that the enemy wasn't really an enemy, but rather a species that went to war with humans over a tragic series of misunderstandings.
ReplyDeleteSo the human fighters had no idea a war was even happening? They thought it was just a game?
DeleteThe pre-teens fighting thought it was a part of their training for war, not actual combat. The adult military commanders knew. A great book.
ReplyDeleteDunno if the military would want to entrust their weaponry to kids who might abandon a "game" midbattle cause pizza arrived.